Abstinence, we are usually told around this time of year, makes the heart grow stronger. It’s why Dry January, which started in the green and pleasantly alcoholic land of Britain a few years ago before reaching the U.S., is increasingly being touted as a good and worthy thing to do, and why so many people are currently making plans to remove whole food groups from their diet: carbs, fat, Terry’s Chocolate Oranges. The key to health, books and websites and dietitians and former presidents reveal, is a process of elimination. It’s going without. It’s getting through the darkest, coldest month of the year without so much as a snifter of antioxidant-rich Cabernet.

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The problem with giving things up, though, is that inevitably it creates a void in one’s diet that only Reese’s pieces and a family-sized wheel of brie can fill. Then there’s the fact that so many abstinence-espousing programs require spending money on things; on Whole 30 cookbooks and Weight Watchers memberships and $10 bottles of bone broth. For a process that supposedly involves cutting things out, there seems to be an awful lot to take in.

This, Michael Pollan posits, is the problem with food: It’s gotten extraordinarily complicated. The writer and sustainable-eating advocate has written several books on how the simple business of eating has become a minefield in which earnest Westerners try to tiptoe around gooey, genetically engineered sugar bombs without setting off an explosion of calories, corn sugar, and cancer. In Defense of Food, published in 2008, offers a “manifesto” for eaters (i.e. humans) that’s breathtaking in its seven-word simplicity: Eat Food. Not Too Much. Mostly Plants. This mantra is repeated once more in a documentary based on the book that airs Wednesday night on PBS, and it’s felt in the January issue of Bon Appetit, which is based almost entirely around the concept of “healthy-ish” eating: “delicious, comforting home cooking that just happens to be kinda good for you.”

Healthy-ish, as a concept, isn’t new. In fact, it’s the food industry’s equivalent of your mom telling you to finish your broccoli before you dive into the Twinkies, only dressed up with a sexy hyphenated coverline and some mouthwatering photos of chicken seared in a cast-iron skillet. “Healthy-ish” shouldn’t feel revolutionary. By its very definition it’s something of a big old foodie shrug—an acknowledgment that if we can’t all subsist on steamed fish and vegetables all of the time, we can at least offset the steak dinner for having salad for lunch. It is, as per Pollan at least, a philosophy that everything is best enjoyed in moderation, including moderation.

So why does it feel so subversive?

The reason, as explained by both manifestations of In Defense of Food, is that industries upon industries, even entire religions, have been predicated on the premise that eating (certain things) is bad and will kill you. The documentary draws on years of food-related quackery to illustrate how ingrained fearing food is. It looks back to John Harvey Kellogg’s sanitariums in the late 19th century, in which the renowned Seventh Day Adventist, convinced that protein was bad for you and that constipation was caused by a buildup of bacteria in the colon, gave prescriptions for yogurt enemas, all-grape diets, and chewing each bite of food 20 times before you swallow.

Kellogg is better-known now as the pioneer behind breakfast cereal, which he believed would help rid the world of the evil that is masturbation, but his experiments with fad diets have informed much of the thinking behind modern “healthy” eating regimes in the ways in which they take things to extremes. Paleo diets, although structured around an excess of protein that Kellogg would faint at, are based on the premise that humans haven’t yet evolved to eat grains, legumes, and dairy (the British Dietetic Association counters that they’re “a sure-fire way to develop nutrient deficiencies”). Veganism, by contrast, is touted by the Physician’s Committee for Responsible Medicine as “the optimal way to meet your nutritional needs” (this may well be true, but it’s also the optimal way to get disinvited from a dinner party). Both involve intensive planning and work. Neither allows any leeway for an 11 a.m. office Krispy Kreme.

“Healthy-ish” is a philosophy that everything is best enjoyed in moderation, including moderation.

What’s so compelling about Pollan’s manifesto, by contrast, is that he obviously loves food, and not in a gets-orgiastic-over-fiber kind of way. Although the documentary is less nuanced and richly drawn than his writing, it communicates much of the passion he feels for simple pleasures like a crunchy, well-dressed salad, or a zesty hunk of warm sourdough bread. In a modern nutritional environment that still can’t decide whether protein is an important building block for human growth or a source of cancer-causing chemicals, there’s something comforting about seeing such a calming soul navigate his way between a golden rotisserie chicken and a buffalo wing, engineered in every way to tickle the relevant taste buds (sweet, salty, fatty, twice-fried).

What’s implicitly communicated by In Defense of Food, and wholly preached by Bon Appetit, is that the key to all this starts at home with the simple act of cooking. “If it came from a plant, eat it,” Pollan says. “If it was made in a plant, don’t.” The reason for this is that unlike large-scale food purveyors, humans are entirely less likely to put things like sodium stearoyl lactylate and soy lecithin in the meals they prepare at home. If you’re cooking dinner, chances are you’re baking potatoes rather than tossing them in a deep fryer, and steaming vegetables instead of dousing them in butter and salt.

“We’re not ascetic,” writes Bon Appetit’s editor, Adam Rapoport, in his January letter to readers. “Instead we think about what we eat, and when and why we eat it. We indulge when the situation arises ... and we try to eat smart other times.” It’s a food philosophy that’s sensible, moderate, conservative, and sound, none of which are particularly sexy qualities when you’re searching for a quick fix to atone for the sins of holiday overindulgence. But unlike going low-carb or alcohol-free, or (shudder) for a yogurt enema, eating healthy-ish is something most people can bear, even long after January rolls out.

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Should you drink more coffee? Should you take melatonin? Can you train yourself to need less sleep? A physician’s guide to sleep in a stressful age.

During residency, Iworked hospital shifts that could last 36 hours, without sleep, often without breaks of more than a few minutes. Even writing this now, it sounds to me like I’m bragging or laying claim to some fortitude of character. I can’t think of another type of self-injury that might be similarly lauded, except maybe binge drinking. Technically the shifts were 30 hours, the mandatory limit imposed by the Accreditation Council for Graduate Medical Education, but we stayed longer because people kept getting sick. Being a doctor is supposed to be about putting other people’s needs before your own. Our job was to power through.

The shifts usually felt shorter than they were, because they were so hectic. There was always a new patient in the emergency room who needed to be admitted, or a staff member on the eighth floor (which was full of late-stage terminally ill people) who needed me to fill out a death certificate. Sleep deprivation manifested as bouts of anger and despair mixed in with some euphoria, along with other sensations I’ve not had before or since. I remember once sitting with the family of a patient in critical condition, discussing an advance directive—the terms defining what the patient would want done were his heart to stop, which seemed likely to happen at any minute. Would he want to have chest compressions, electrical shocks, a breathing tube? In the middle of this, I had to look straight down at the chart in my lap, because I was laughing. This was the least funny scenario possible. I was experiencing a physical reaction unrelated to anything I knew to be happening in my mind. There is a type of seizure, called a gelastic seizure, during which the seizing person appears to be laughing—but I don’t think that was it. I think it was plain old delirium. It was mortifying, though no one seemed to notice.

A report will be shared with lawmakers before Trump’s inauguration, a top advisor said Friday.

President Obama has asked intelligence officials to perform a “full review” of election-related hacking, a top advisor told reporters Friday. The White House will share a report of its findings with lawmakers before Obama leaves office on January 20, 2017, she said.

Lisa Monaco, the president’s advisor for homeland security, made the comments at a Christian Science Monitor event. They were first reported by Politico and The Hill.

Last week, every Democrat (and a Democrat-aligned Independent) on the Senate Intelligence Committee called on the White House to declassify and release more information about Russia’s involvement in the U.S. elections. It’s not clear whether the review announced Friday is connected to the letter from the committee members.

His paranoid style paved the road for Trumpism. Now he fears what’s been unleashed.

Glenn Beck looks like the dad in a Disney movie. He’s earnest, geeky, pink, and slightly bulbous. His idea of salty language is bullcrap.

The atmosphere at Beck’s Mercury Studios, outside Dallas, is similarly soothing, provided you ignore the references to genocide and civilizational collapse. In October, when most commentators considered a Donald Trump presidency a remote possibility, I followed audience members onto the set of The Glenn Beck Program, which airs on Beck’s website, theblaze.com. On the way, we passed through a life-size replica of the Oval Office as it might look if inhabited by a President Beck, complete with a portrait of Ronald Reagan and a large Norman Rockwell print of a Boy Scout.

“Well, you’re just special. You’re American,” remarked my colleague, smirking from across the coffee table. My other Finnish coworkers, from the school in Helsinki where I teach, nodded in agreement. They had just finished critiquing one of my habits, and they could see that I was on the defensive.

I threw my hands up and snapped, “You’re accusing me of being too friendly? Is that really such a bad thing?”

“Well, when I greet a colleague, I keep track,” she retorted, “so I don’t greet them again during the day!” Another chimed in, “That’s the same for me, too!”

Unbelievable, I thought. According to them, I’m too generous with my hellos.

When I told them I would do my best to greet them just once every day, they told me not to change my ways. They said they understood me. But the thing is, now that I’ve viewed myself from their perspective, I’m not sure I want to remain the same. Change isn’t a bad thing. And since moving to Finland two years ago, I’ve kicked a few bad American habits.

Why the ingrained expectation that women should desire to become parents is unhealthy

In 2008, Nebraska decriminalized child abandonment. The move was part of a "safe haven" law designed to address increased rates of infanticide in the state. Like other safe-haven laws, parents in Nebraska who felt unprepared to care for their babies could drop them off in a designated location without fear of arrest and prosecution. But legislators made a major logistical error: They failed to implement an age limitation for dropped-off children.

Within just weeks of the law passing, parents started dropping off their kids. But here's the rub: None of them were infants. A couple of months in, 36 children had been left in state hospitals and police stations. Twenty-two of the children were over 13 years old. A 51-year-old grandmother dropped off a 12-year-old boy. One father dropped off his entire family -- nine children from ages one to 17. Others drove from neighboring states to drop off their children once they heard that they could abandon them without repercussion.

Why did Trump’s choice for national-security advisor perform so well in the war on terror, only to find himself forced out of the Defense Intelligence Agency?

How does a man like retired Lieutenant General Mike Flynn—who spent his life sifting through information and parsing reports, separating rumor and innuendo from actionable intelligence—come to promote conspiracy theories on social media?

Perhaps it’s less Flynn who’s changed than that the circumstances in which he finds himself—thriving in some roles, and flailing in others.

In diagnostic testing, there’s a basic distinction between sensitivity, or the ability to identify positive results, and specificity, the ability to exclude negative ones. A test with high specificity may avoid generating false positives, but at the price of missing many diagnoses. One with high sensitivity may catch those tricky diagnoses, but also generate false positives along the way. Some people seem to sift through information with high sensitivity, but low specificity—spotting connections that others can’t, and perhaps some that aren’t even there.

The president-elect has chosen Andrew Puzder, a vocal critic of minimum-wage hikes and new overtime rules.

Updated on December 9, 2016

President-Elect Donald Trump announced Thursday evening that he picked Andrew Puzder, the CEO of CKE Restaurants, which owns fast-food chains Carl’s Jr. and Hardee’s, to lead the U.S. Department of Labor. Puzder—like several of Trump’s other nominees—is a multi-millionaire and Washington outsider who served as an adviser and fundraiser during the presidential campaign. While there’s no political record to indicate how Puzder thinks about the labor market, his remarks as a business executive give some indication of the stances he’ll take on several important labor issues.

If confirmed, Puzder will likely take a pro-business, anti-labor, approach to steering the federal agency tasked with protecting American workers and their jobs, which clashes with Trump’s populist campaign message of fighting for blue-collar workers. Puzder has been a vocal defender of Trump’s economic policies, including lowering the corporate-tax rate, and has opposed Obamacare and certain business regulations, such as a higher minimum wage. Puzder has argued against raising the minimum wage and offering paid leave and health insurance to employees. Efforts to increase the minimum wage, he writes, will hurt everyone, especially low-skilled workers, because “businesses will have to figure out the best way to deal with the high labor costs.” Those changes, he says, will lead to price increases, more efficient labor management, and automation.

Since the end of World War II, the most crucial underpinning of freedom in the world has been the vigor of the advanced liberal democracies and the alliances that bound them together. Through the Cold War, the key multilateral anchors were NATO, the expanding European Union, and the U.S.-Japan security alliance. With the end of the Cold War and the expansion of NATO and the EU to virtually all of Central and Eastern Europe, liberal democracy seemed ascendant and secure as never before in history.

Under the shrewd and relentless assault of a resurgent Russian authoritarian state, all of this has come under strain with a speed and scope that few in the West have fully comprehended, and that puts the future of liberal democracy in the world squarely where Vladimir Putin wants it: in doubt and on the defensive.

Democrats who have struggled for years to sell the public on the Affordable Care Act are now confronting a far more urgent task: mobilizing a political coalition to save it.

Even as the party reels from last month’s election defeat, members of Congress, operatives, and liberal allies have turned to plotting a campaign against repealing the law that, they hope, will rival the Tea Party uprising of 2009 that nearly scuttled its passage in the first place. A group of progressive advocacy groups will announce on Friday a coordinated effort to protect the beneficiaries of the Affordable Care Act and stop Republicans from repealing the law without first identifying a plan to replace it.

They don’t have much time to fight back. Republicans on Capitol Hill plan to set repeal of Obamacare in motion as soon as the new Congress opens in January, and both the House and Senate could vote to wind down the law immediately after President-elect Donald Trump takes the oath of office on the 20th.

Trinidad has the highest rate of Islamic State recruitment in the Western hemisphere. How did this happen?

This summer, the so-called Islamic State published issue 15 of its online magazine Dabiq. In what has become a standard feature, it ran an interview with an ISIS foreign fighter. “When I was around twenty years old I would come to accept the religion of truth, Islam,” said Abu Sa’d at-Trinidadi, recalling how he had turned away from the Christian faith he was born into.

At-Trinidadi, as his nom de guerre suggests, is from the Caribbean island of Trinidad and Tobago (T&T), a country more readily associated with calypso and carnival than the “caliphate.” Asked if he had a message for “the Muslims of Trinidad,” he condemned his co-religionists at home for remaining in “a place where you have no honor and are forced to live in humiliation, subjugated by the disbelievers.” More chillingly, he urged Muslims in T&T to wage jihad against their fellow citizens: “Terrify the disbelievers in their own homes and make their streets run with their blood.”